Corner site home balances privacy and openness to views

A focus of any home design, and particularly one on a corner site, is achieving a balancing act between privacy and attractive views. That was addressed for this contemporary home, along with strategies to create open, versatile interiors.

The brief to house designer Daniel Lomma was for a two-storey home with plenty of room for all four family members to have their own space, now and into the future.

“Being on a corner, the owners wanted both street aspects of the home to be appealing,” says Lomma. 

Perhaps the key request, however, was that the home blur the lines between indoors and out, with a central entertainment space that opens to the backyard, garden and new pool.

“Dramatic street appeal has been achieved through balanced geometric treatments of both elevations of the home, with character finishes including durable aluminium wood-look battens and split face and smooth masonry blocks.”

Adding further visual interest, the home’s footprint steps in at both the entry and a side porch area. As well as maximising natural light penetration, this created opportunities for more windows – throughout the residence, windows with views are optimised and, where a natural view is lacking, ponds and landscaping create complementary outlooks.

And the complex yet harmonious nature of the home’s layered, textured cladding is also an indication of what’s to come on the interior.

From the dramatic double-height entrance, family and guests quickly arrive at the large, open-plan kitchen, dining and living area that is the heart of the home. In turn, the dining area and adjacent living area open up via full-height stacker and sliding doors to a lawn, an alfresco living area, landscaped gardens and the pool.

Even the kitchen offers glimpses out to the lawn and pool, while an activity room also opens to the rear indoor-outdoor environment.  This room is designed to offer flexibility and can double as a guest bedroom or gym. Beyond the activity room, at the end of the home, there is a powder room easily accessed from the pool.

“The wide use of glass operable walls and architectural vistas through the interior draw the eye towards the lawn, pool and landscaped garden as well as to the canopy of the nature reserve beyond,” Lomma says. 

“In addition, the home’s earthy interior palette blends with and complements the verdant reserve outlooks.

“The close collaboration between interior designer Dominik Karl and myself was pivotal to the look of the interiors and detailing. Mondo Landscapes transformed the outdoor spaces.”

Upstairs there are the master suite, three other bedrooms, a retreat and the family bathroom. This level includes an external architectural frame complete with operable louvres, which both defines and shelters the alfresco dining directly below.

And back on the ground floor, the light-filled home office with its own external entry is another example of room versatility, at the same time helping to future proof the home.

“We designed the office-study with a storage room with a cavity sliding door,” says Lomma. 

“This end storage area can double as a wardrobe if the study is ever used either as a guest room or an easy-access master bedroom in the future.”

Lastly, privacy to the backyard, pool and outdoor living areas is achieved through clever use of angled slat fencing. Besides screening the street, this also provides the open aspect required by council regulations.

Story by: Charles Moxham

Photography by: Michael Conroy